mainly mongoose

Friday, January 23, 2015

Yep, that’s right.
I’ve been driven to it by the hardships of my life.

Normally I can handle my self-imposed solitude; month after month alone in the bush, my only human converse, ‘Fill it up with Super, thanks’.
But sometimes it all gets too difficult and I just can’t go on without the comfort of a sympathetic ear (or rather, eye).

What’s brought about this tragic state of affairs?
The unbearable cuteness of mongoose pups.

Each day, when I visit my study animals, I have to face them. Waddling out eagerly on their stumpy legs, they look like a swarm of mouse-sized bear cubs. Blunt noses raised, they peer up at me myopically with misty green eyes. As I crouch down, they gather around, clambering over my boots and eagerly placing their tiny paws on my leg, their claws scratchy against my skin. Although, at three weeks old, they’re still primarily milk-guzzlers, they’re hoping I'll give them a mealworm, which they snatch hungrily from my fingers and crunch up with a relish quite disproportionate to their size.

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Tended constantly by a babysitter during their first 4 weeks, dwarf mongoose pups first toddle from their termite mound at 2.5 to 3 weeks. These little guys - Periwinkle, Speedwell and Nepenthes (coz she bites) - are from Halcyon’s first litter. Copyright L Sharpe.

A swarm of little Herpestids. In an act of unusual magnanimity, the reigning females in both Bugbears and Halcyon allowed their sisters’ litters to live this year (usually they just munch ‘em) so both groups are raising a bumper crop (7 and 8 pups respectively). Copyright L Sharpe.

If the morning is drear and chilly, one of the pups will clamber laboriously up onto my leg and snuggle down, hearth-rug style, with its belly pressed firmly against the bare skin of my thigh. Since mongoose pups like to huddle, others soon follow suit, until I have the whole litter heaped in a somnolent pile in my lap. They’re so relaxed it looks as if some awful massacre has taken place; at least until the top ones grow chilly and squirm their way underneath their comatose siblings. The babysitters aren’t quite sure that this is kosher of course, and they sit watching anxiously, like mothers on the first day of school.

Monday, February 10, 2014

Mongooses were darting everywhere. Small worried faces peered out from beneath a tumble of granite boulders, and the piercing chirps of distressed mongoose pups pulsed from all directions at once. I saw Black (the group’s alpha male) snatch up a youngster and race off, leaping from boulder to boulder, before disappearing into a thicket more than 50 m (165 ft) away. Meanwhile, close to my feet, Iorek, fluffed into the shape of a football, approached in a slow ninja crouch.

Then I saw the cause.

Coiled on a sheet of rock right in front of me was one metre (3 ft) of slate-grey snake. It coiled and writhed and twisted sinuously in an eye-catching way that made my skin creep. But that was just the beginning (or more accurately the end). From this squirming mass stretched another meter of totally inert snake which led (my eyes drawn inexorably on) to the final metre. This rose up vertically, placing the snake’s smooth grey head at waist height. The creature was not looking at me; its gaze was fixed firmly on the mongooses.

Ah, a black mamba.

Black mambas (Dendroaspis polylepis) are the world’s second longest venomous snake (piped at the post only by India’s king cobra). They reach 2 m (6 ft) by their first birthday and can grow to 4 m (13 ft). Reputedly also the globe’s speediest serpent (but who’s clocked them all?), they zip along at 5 m (15 ft) per second, through the branches or down on terra firma.
Photo by Michael Ransburg.

Absurdly, black mambas (Dendroaspis polylepis) aren’t black. It’s the insides of their mouths that are ebony (oh, of course). When antsy, a mamba will raise the first third of its body vertically off the ground, flash its sooty maw and hiss ferociously (note to self: avoid black gums).
Photo posted on Flickr by Viperskin.

Now black mambas have almost mythic status here in Africa. Preposterously long and super quick, they might have slithered straight from the novels of Rider Haggard or an Indiana Jones movie. Their bite (if untreated) is 100% fatal, and they’re said to attack without provocation, chase their victims and track them down using scent.

And all this is true ...if you’re a dwarf mongoose.

However, even if you’re a bipedal primate (and I’m assuming you are), black mambas are not to be messed with. Piss one off (by molesting or cornering it) and you’re in serious trouble. Retaliating mambas bite multiple times at a single strike (although normally too rapidly to see), injecting about 100 mg of toxin at each lightning-quick chomp (no inoffensive ‘dry bites’ here I’m afraid). 10-15 mg of the stuff will kill you (by paralysis and suffocation), so unless you can conjure up antivenin and life-support within an hour or so, you may as well start looking for that brightly-lit tunnel.

Although all this is pleasantly titillating, it must be said that black mambas are masters at avoiding people. And they rarely nibble on humans. A study in the 1960s found that out of more than 1,000 snake-bite victims admitted to Durban hospitals over a seven year period, only eight had fallen foul of black mambas.
And whenever I meet one (usually only a few times a year), it’s always rocketing away from me.
So why was this snake at Bugbears just... er... standing there?
And what was with the whole tail-writhing thingey?

I edged a little closer but the snake still didn’t respond. Black mambas hunt by day, actively tracking warm-blooded critters by scent, so they pose a serious threat to dwarf mongooses.
But if mambas are quick so too are mongooses, and the snake will only make a killing if it can catch one by surprise. So the instant a mongoose detects a whiff of serpent it screams ‘SNAKE!’ and whole group comes running. Fur-fluffed, spitting and growling, they encircle the reptile, creeping forward on their tummies before hurtling backward whenever it stirs. I bite my fingernails and sweat a lot.

Once they’ve harassed it, the mongooses flee (unlike with other large snakes), hotfooting it at least 100-300 m/yds. Yet they always leave someone (usually the second-in-charge male) behind. This guard follows the mamba’s every move for 10-20 minutes (presumably to check it doesn’t pursue the group) before racing off to rejoin his family. (No, I don’t know how he knows where they’ve gone, but he does). This strategy seems to work well and mambas aren’t big mongoose-eaters.

But when the group has small pups the whole ballgame changes.
Pups are not quick. Pups are dim-witted and gullible.
Suddenly mambas appear out of the woodwork.

The mamba in front of me was being guarded by both Iorek and Bear; meanwhile the other adults were dashing back and forth, helter-skelter, snatching up pups from various hiding places and carting them off in different directions (the old eggs-in-one-basket issue). I watched Pooh carefully stow her small burden in a narrow rock crevice before hurrying back to watch the snake. However, the pup, used to being tucked up snugly with its littermates, freaked out at being left all alone. Its anguished chirps, combining with those of its four siblings, rose in a deafening chorus of distress.

The mamba still stood quite motionless, apart from its absurdly writhing rear end. Is this how mambas hunt mongooses? Was the snake trying to hold the mongooses’ attention with its nether coils while ambushing them from above? (Is this why mambas are so bloody long??) I can’t find any mention of mambas hunting this way but behavioural studies of wild snakes are as rare as... er... snake’s legs. And doting snake-enthusiasts are unlikely to feed their pets mongooses (at least I hope not!). I became more convinced by this interpretation just a few days later when I came across another mamba doing exactly the same thing with Koppiekats (who also have little pups).

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Black mamba venom is a potent concoction that locks down muscle cells in numerous devious ways. However, there’s a bright side: it also contains mambalign, a ‘better-than-morphine’ painkiller. Damaged and inflamed tissue becomes acidic (due to a build up of positive ions) and these ions trigger pain by flooding into nerve cells via special portals (‘acid-sensing ion channels’ or ASICs) on the cell’s surface. Mambalign locks these ASICs tightly closed, thus stopping pain. It’s not clear why mambas provide this unexpected boon to their victims, especially since the venom of many less-considerate snakes actually incites pain by locking ASICs open.You can read a popular account of mambalign research here.
Photo by Ian Turk.

As I edged a little nearer to the mamba I dislodged a pebble which bounced down toward the snake. Instantly it shot off into the undergrowth. Iorek and Cricket raced after it, desperate to keep it in sight, but it was moving so fast it had gone in an instant.
Calling constantly to one another, the mongooses fanned out to search. They crept about tentatively on tip-toe and with their backs arched, sniffing and peering under boulders, into crevices and up into the overhead branches. After about 10 minutes, they seemed satisfied that the snake wasn’t loitering nearby and began their exodus. While Black kept guard from the top of a large boulder, the others hurriedly gathered up the five squawking pups and raced off with them toward a distant kopje.

Black (BM003) watching for the enemy while the group evacuates the pups.

Tick (BF038) carrying her little brother/sister out of harm’s way.

The mongooses regrouped about 150m/yrds away beneath a huge granite boulder. After Cricket and Bear had raced back for a last quick check of the area (to ensure no errant pup had been left behind), the group settled down in a huddle to groom one another consolingly. The pups, now happily together again, began to play wrestle.
But everyone was still unnerved.
How could I tell?
Each time I raised my hand unconsciously to shoo a fly, they’d all leap in the air!

Is it safe to come out yet? At three weeks old, dwarf mongoose pups are mobile but gormless. This is Arctos (BU061).

Thursday, January 23, 2014

Everyone has days when they feel unappreciated.You know how it is: those around you not only take your help for granted, they then go on to presume.Well this is one of those days for me.

What’s caused this sad state of affairs?Well, with the summer rain, my garden’s transformed into a jungle. The ‘lawn’ has reached head-height and the local avifauna have moved in.This is not the problem.I love watching the common waxbills clamber about the tussocks, scissoring off grass seeds with their redder than red bills. Down below the firefinches and blue waxbills hop about searching diligently for windfalls, and garrulous flocks of red-billed queleas swoop in to chatter and squabble among the trembling seed heads.

The joys of being lawn-mowerless(Common waxbill, Estrilda astrild)

But these little seed eaters aren’t alone. In the wild mango, a pair of scarlet-chested sunbirds are canoodling, and tucked beneath my eaves, four families of white-rumped swifts noisily discuss the pleasures of the day.But my grievances don’t rest with any of these critters.It’s the garden’s tiniest feathered bug-eaters that have earned my ire.

Now tawny-flanked prinias aren’t a species you usually notice. They flit about in the undergrowth, pausing now again, with jauntily cocked tails, to peer around for ill-fated bugs. Only if something’s bothering them do you become aware of their loud and persistent complaints: przzt-przzt-przzt.

Tawny-flanked prinias (Prinia subflava) are Africa’s best attempt at a fairywren. However they’re traditionalists at heart, opting for monogamy and nuclear families. This juvenile was photographed by Neil Strickland.

Tawny-flanked prinias were once thought to flutter over much of Africa, India and east Asia (prinia is the Javan name for the species). However, the elegant inhabitants of the orient have recently gained taxonomic independence (becoming Prinia inornata) - presumably to their huge relief (my prinias could never look this refined).
Photo taken in Taiwan and posted on Flickr by John&Fish.

I was sitting on my veranda one morning, with my dogs and cat sprawled around me, when a prinia fluttered down to perch in a tangle of weeds almost at my elbow. Oh how charming, I thought, as I watched it throw out its chest excitedly and clarion its territorial przzts. It then zipped away, returning a moment or two later with a long, wavering grass stem.Oh no, it couldn’t be... Surely, not there... But yes, it was determinedly twining the grass stem around a weed stalk.I watched aghast: the creature was building a nest at perfect dog nose-height.

Now please bear in mind that while one of my dogs (Wizard) is a dyed-in-the-wool husky who sensibly eschews feathery aperitifs in favour of whale carcasses, the other is a husky-cross. I don’t know what her husky forebear coupled with, but it was certainly purpose-bred to exterminate rodents. Magic’s blood-lust for small defenceless critters is enough to turn even Wizard’s stomach.
I couldn’t decide whether the kamikaze homemakers, busily weaving a nursery just 1.2 m (4 ft) away from us, were the silliest birds to fly God’s airspace... or the most fiendishly cunning.What snake, what monitor, what raptor would dare attack them there??

The pair dashed back and forth excitedly, hopping up and down on their toes and eagerly entwining leaf blades into their globe-shaped construction. Every now again one (the male?) would alight exuberantly on a weed top and przzt in triumph (just in case some predator hadn’t noticed them). I’m sure birds feel euphoric when they’re nest-building. These two just looked so, well... pleased with themselves.
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Hmm, scissor truss joists here I think...

Both Ma and Pa prinia enjoy DIY but since they favour matching outfits (and both don their glad rags for the occasion (brighter with tail extensions)), I don’t know who this is.

The completed nursery.

I was convinced that sooner or later they’d realise the error of their ways and abandon the whole hare-brained scheme, but after a few days three tiny eggs – salmon-brown mottled with purple – appeared inside the rattan ball.

Having borne witness to this folly, I felt obliged to assist the venture. So, for the last month, I’ve been creeping about the garden, calling my dogs away dozens of times a day, dashing outside whenever a harrier hawk or coucal drops by and generally worrying over the hatchlings’ long-term prospects.

Now I do not expect accolades for this effort. I don’t expect the little creatures to sing my praises or bring me gifts (bugs?) or help with the housework. But their actual response left me speechless.

I was busily working on my computer (I do work sometimes) when I noticed a prinia hopping past the back door. I’d seen them flitting about there before and assumed they were hunting bugs. But this one was carrying something in its beak. It hopped on to the back door step, paused, examined the step with its head on one side, looking first to the left and then to the right, and then it carefully put down its burden – placing it meticulously, just so. It then flew off.

Curious, I went to see what it had been doing.
Bad move.
There, right before my door, was a little moist package of bird poop.
And when I looked closely I realised that the whole step was scattered with small white faecal sacs.They were using my door step as a waste dump for their nestlings’ poop!

Now I know that most birds remove (or swallow) their ankle-biters’ droppings so they don’t attract potential chick-munchers.
But why put the stuff on my doorstep?
Do they think my house stinks so badly it will mask the faeces’ odour?
Why not place the goo further along the veranda amid the piles of swift droppings?
Why not put it, well... ANYWHERE else??

Sunday, January 5, 2014

Then the Ethiopian put his five fingers close together (there was plenty of black left on his new skin still) and pressed them all over the Leopard, and wherever the five fingers touched they left five little black marks, all close together. You can see them on any Leopard's skin...

‘How the Leopard got his spots’ from The Just So Stories.

Rudyard Kipling, 1902.

I’ve always disliked the Just So Stories.
As an animal-obsessed child I encountered them often but they inevitably left me feeling cheated and irritated. I really wanted to know why the leopard sported spots or how the elephant acquired its trunk and these silly tales could not enlighten me. (Maybe zoologists are born and not made??)
Fortunately neither Kipling, nor Aesop, tackled the tricky question of How the Zebra got its Stripes. A San (Bushman) legend, however, attributes the charcoal stripes to singe-marks...

But why am I pondering equine apparel?
Well, firstly it’s the festive season and what could be more festive than a zebra?
Romping, head-tossing and snorting, these roly-poly creatures are guaranteed to lift one’s spirit. They’re a dazzling chimera: part mythical beast, part fairground runaway, part my-first-pony.

Who can resist a zebra?

My second reason is that the local zebra mares are celebrating the season by dropping their foals. This has transformed my drive to work into a wonderful, ooh-ah experience. The new mums are cautious and they gallop off as I approach, their gangly-legged foals racing and weaving out ahead of them. The herd’s stallion trots a few paces before swinging around to confront me. Standing tall with nose lifted, ears pricked and nostrils flared, he paces forward a stride or two, doing his best to look fierce and intimidating. Once I’ve actually passed by, he wheels around and thunders off after his disappearing family.

Now before we start let’s get one thing straight: zebra is not a proper taxonomic term. In fact it’s a brazen act of colour discrimination.
Zebra simply means ‘striped horse’ and it’s like using one collective name for all spotted cats or all blue birds.
The great grandmamma of today’s six horse species galloped into existence on the North American plains about two million years ago, and then clip-clopped off to world domination. This equine granny is believed to have worn stripes and three of her great grand kids maintain traditional dress. However, these purists are no more related to one another than they are to the more individualistically attired horses and donkeys.
While the Grevy’s zebra (trotting about northern Kenya) is clearly an ass (no offense meant), the mountain zebra (counting down its days in the pointy bits of southern Africa) and the savannah-loving Burchell’s zebra are more closely allied to horses, enjoying the same free-wheeling lifestyle as mustangs and brumbies (i.e. itinerant harems).

The Grevy’s zebra (Equus grevyi) voices its dismay over its endangerment with a classic donkey’s ‘hee-haw’. As with the wild asses, stallions hold down real estate and then have their wicked way with mares that wander by. Photo by Steve Garvie.

The mountain zebra (Equus zebra) may look similar to the Burchell’s (give or take a dewlap and a bare tummy) but their differences run deep: the Burchell’s zebra boasts 44 chromosomes while the mountain zebra makes do with 32. Photo by Vince O’Sullivan.

The critically endangered Somali wild ass (Equus africanus) sired every donkey and mule on the planet; obviously a smart decision to hang on to those lewd stockings. Photo by Lisa Brown.

So why are some horses stripy? I mean virtually every other grass-munching mammal favours demur browns or greys. What do zebra gain from sporting so much razzmatazz?
Well, sit back and enjoy some scientific just-so-stories.

Black and white stripes may dazzle and confuse leaping predators, or rouse in them a sense of danger (if skunks can do it...). Those stripes may deter blood-sucking flies, act as camouflage (at a distance) or break up a zebra’s outline. They may generate cooling air currents, enhance the wearer’s sex appeal or machismo, or allow individuals to recognise their nearest and dearest (every zebra is fingerprint-unique).

Of course ‘stories’ like these are the raw material of science. Whittled away by scientific endeavour, they’ll eventually yield a shabby effigy of reality. So I’m delighted that - after centuries of speculation - researchers are finally starting to test them.

The Burchell’s (or plains) zebra (Equus burchelli) looks like it’s been gift-wrapped by, er... someone like me. The stripes are aligned horizontally on the back half but vertically on the front.

The old razzle-dazzle, predator-befuddling fable has been given scientific credence by Martin How and Johannes Zanker. Using piccies of Burchell’s zebras, they produced computer models which show that the zebra’s stripes create an optical illusion. Most animals (including you and me) have neural circuits in their brains that detect the direction an object is moving by monitoring how its contours appear. But when a zebra moves, its diagonal flank stripes, juxtaposed with the narrower vertical stripes on its neck and shoulders, produce confusing signals that flummox these motion detectors. Just like the classic barbers’ pole (whose spiral stripe appears to move upward when the pole spins), the zebra’s stripes make it appear as if the creature is moving in the wrong direction. In the pell-mell of a hunt, with multiple zebras leaping and jostling, these fickle signals may throw a lion off its stride.

Although it’s great to have this fable confirmed, it doesn’t fully explain why zebras are stripy. The problem is, not all species have the Burchell’s stripe pattern: Grevy’s zebras don’t have diagonal flank stripes, and the ill-starred quagga had no stripes at all on its back half (the bit most frequently viewed by blood-thirsty zebra-consumers).

Have I got them at the back too?

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The brown quagga (a South African subspecies of the Burchell’s zebra) rashly lost many of its stripes. This sacrifice, however, failed to save it from being hunted to extinction for its skin during the 1800s. This scary spectre haunts a museum in Berlin (photo from Wikipedia).

The bug-proofing fable has also earned itself the scientific stamp of approval. In a horse paddock in distant Hungary, Adam Egric and a whole troop of researchers have been testing how colour influences the avarice of horseflies (tabanid flies). By leaving out coloured boards coated in sticky bug-glue, they’ve shown that dark colours (which reflect horizontally polarised light) are much more attractive to the little winged vampires than is white (which scatters light in all directions). Yet when the researchers put out a board with black and white stripes (which does both) they were startled to find that it lured fewer flies than just plain white. After trying various widths of stripe, they found that typical ‘zebra-width’ (i.e. Burchell’s) attracted the fewest flies of all. As a final confirmation, they created plastic horse models, smeared them with glue and left them outside for a two-week period. They then counted the number of ensnared horseflies and found that the black model harboured 562, the brown model 334, the white 22 and the zebra-striped model 8.

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Sticky equids. Photo by Gabor Horvath (I’m unsure of the legality of using this image but I couldn’t resist it).

I must admit I’d be more convinced by this study if the researchers had done it with African bugs. Do the local tsetse flies show the same proclivities? Blood-thirsty insects can certainly pose a serious risk to their hoofed victims (because they transmit noxious illnesses) but if stripes are such an effective fly-repellent why don’t other succulent herbivores flaunt them too? And why is the Somali wild ass - who lives only a teeny bit further north than the very stripy Grevy’s zebra – unashamedly stripe-free?

Of course, the reason that ancestral horses opted for stripes in the first place may be different from the reason that stripes are a fashion item today. And different species may hang on to their stripes for different reasons... (oh, the trials of an evolutionary biologist).To be honest, I’d put my money on a social function being the primary one (but maybe my gregarious little mongooses have biased my thinking?). Although the stripe pattern on the rear half of zebras varies greatly (both between and within species), everyone looks remarkably similar up front (i.e. the bit spied by other zebras during social encounters). And we all know that transverse stripes make one look fat. Since prancing about on tippy-toe with an arched neck is standard protocol for equids out to impress, it seems very likely that stripes function to make the wearer look bigger and heftier.
But of course this is just one more just-so-story until some dedicated soul heads out there with a little pot of hair dye...

Friday, November 22, 2013

Sorry I’ve taken such a ridiculous amount of time to upload this post...

Outside North America, the heart-warming tradition of extorting candy from strangers (trick or treating) is often met with less than enthusiasm. A survey in the UK, for example, found that more than half of British householders turn off their lights and pretend to be out, come All Hallows Eve.
But living as a hermit, tucked away in the African bush, I wasn’t expecting callers.
I was wrong.

Now trick or treating can trace its roots back to the Middle Ages, when the financially-challenged celebrated All Saints’ Day (or All Hallows’ Day) by dressing as demons and bartering prayers and songs (to help the wealthy’s departed mosey on through Purgatory) for cash and cakes. This jolly festivity was called souling and it was definitely a souler who visited my house on Halloween night.

But I’m jumping ahead of myself here because my exchanges with soulers really started a few days earlier when I was walking my dogs down along the river. At this time of year (end of the dry season) the river is braided with sand and fringed by dense thickets of reeds. It was late afternoon and heavy clouds were leaching away the light when we heard a loud, rasping grunting coming from the far bank. The dogs and I crept upstream until we were directly opposite the hidden caller and hunkered down in a thicket of raisin-bushes in the hopes of catching a glimpse of the vocalist. With no more than 30m (100 ft) between us and the vociferous beast, its deep, grating calls were deafening, thrumming uncomfortably inside my chest.

Embarrassingly, it took me almost six years to figure out who utters this call. I’d always assumed it was a baboon expletive (something about one’s mother??) because it inevitably invoked a cacophony of outraged bellows from the local baboon troop. But it’s actually voiced by a much more impressive beast (my apologies to all Papiophiles). The books describe it as sounding ‘a lot like someone sawing wood’. I used to find this description unconvincing, but up close and personal, it’s spot on (in an age of chainsaws, perhaps I just don’t know what a distant wood-saw sounds like). The leopard utters its rasping ‘strokes’ while both inhaling and exhaling, and the result is shockingly loud. You can hear it here (click on leopard), but it's a recording of very distant animal (can't find anything better however).

Big cats (members of the genus Panthera) - unlike small cats (members of Felis) - can utter astoundingly loud roars because their hyoid bone (you know, the one that snaps during strangulation, as per CSI) has been replaced with cartilage.
Photo by Arno Meintjes.

Leopards (Panthera pardus) are the most cosmopolitan of the world’s cats (apart from our little domestic moggies, of course). They prowl almost every habitat in Africa and sneak about in Asia as far as China and Malaysia. They also sometimes munch people - mostly in India and Nepal - annually killing 1.9 Nepalese per million. Photo by Arno Meintjes.

The vocalist was hidden among the reeds by the water’s edge, and while we were trying to spot spots, I realised that the cat was actually dueting. Further upstream – on our side of the river – another leopard was answering. Fortuitously, we were downwind of both animals and it was clear that this second leopard was hot-footing its way downstream toward us. Were the two engaged in an acoustic border dispute? Or was one of them on the make?
I very much wanted to see what would happen when the two cats met. My dogs, however, weren’t too keen on the idea. I don’t know what’s changed their minds about leopards (they used to try to chase them) but these days the merest whiff of fresh leopard spoor makes them panic. They press up against each other and - glancing nervously over their shoulders - tow me away as rapidly as possible. They also now refuse to lie outside on moonless nights...
Thinking about it - maybe it’s better I don’t know...

Like almost all cats, leopards are solitary beasts. They stake claim to their territories using pee and song, and ferociously oust all members of their sex.
Photo by Steve Jurvetson.

She-leopards also use the species’ long-distance roar as a siren call for suitors. Like lions, leopards mate repeatedly for days at a time (he has to coax her into ovulation) but - unlike consorting lions - it’s very rare to catch them at it.
Photo (of captive Persian leopards) posted on Flickr by Tambako the jaguar.

As the leopard on our side of the river drew closer and closer, the dogs became more and more agitated, tugging frantically on their leashes. I began to wonder if I was acting prudently. I mean leopard fatalities are a rarity here in Africa but every few years the odd person gets chomped (and I’m certainly odd). In fact - I suddenly recalled as we sat hidden in our waterside thicket - a leopard attacked someone just a few weeks ago up near Pundia Maria (Kruger National Park). With the leopard on our bank no more than 50m (165 ft) off and closing fast, and the rasping roars of both cats now reverberating in our chests, Wizard’s nerve finally broke and he dragged me, sprawling, out of the shrubbery (let me tell you, huskies can pull). The leopard across the river immediately stopped roaring: our cover was blown. Although the cat on our bank continued to call, I figured that they wouldn’t interact normally, so I let the dogs haul me away inland.

Now I thought that this was the end of it.
But then the souler arrived on Halloween.

It was about 8pm and I was innocently watching TV when the roars began. Once again two leopards were dueting, with one far off and the other quite close. And getting closer... and closer... and CLOSER! Oh God, it’s roaring from the reeds just below my garden. Sitting no more than 15m (50 ft) from my back door, it gave its thunderous grating roars - one every three minutes or so - for more than an hour.

Now I don’t think this creature was seeking a treat (at least not from me) but I felt its performance would certainly hurry any passing spirits on their way, through Purgatory or otherwise. I mean leopards have harried our ancestors for millennia. Modern forensics show that at least one fossil hominid (who dwelt in South Africa 1.8 million years ago) fell victim to a leopard: the puncture wounds piercing the back of his/her skull perfectly match the bite impressions of a leopard’s lower canines. Researchers have even suggested that humans owe their intelligence to the leopard via an evolutionary arms race in which we combated stealth and might with cleverness. And I have to admit that while it was hugely exhilarating having a leopard at the bottom of my garden, it was also a little scary.
A leopard just isn’t something you want to stumble over when you pop out to move the sprinkler.
Would that be the trick I wonder?
Ah, spooky ol’ Halloween...

What better emissary to communicate with the dead than a professional killer? Photo by Arno Meintjes.

P.S. I always carry a nifty little pepper spray when I’m out dog-walking (I thought I’d mention that for the sake of nervous relatives).

Sunday, September 29, 2013

Before I begin, I’d like to apologise if this blog post is a little... er... disjointed.
Or a touch confused.
Or just plain... jittery.

You see I’m currently sitting hunched in front of my computer with my legs tightly crossed, jiggling. While half my brain ponders this blog post, the other half is quietly chanting, Sheldon-like,
‘I am the Master of my bladder...’
It’s not true of course. In any showdown, my gross bodily functions inevitably triumph.
So why don’t I just go and, er... relieve myself?

Because when I visit my toilet, I AM NOT ALONE.

No, the marbled tree snake has not moved back into my shower cubicle (actually I don’t even have a shower cubicle). The problem is smaller. But more numerous...

You see, dwelling within my toilet is a community of bubbling kassinas.
Now I know this probably won’t mean much to you.
It even sounds quite pleasant, doesn’t it? Drifts of tiny aquatic flowers maybe, garlanded with little silver bubbles?
Well you can forget that. Bubbling kassinas are frogs.
Little frogs; cute frogs; but FROGS!

Okay, I realise that when you live in the tropics, toilet-dwelling amphibians are humdrum and routine. But those are tree frogs. Those are frogs that hop about and clamber up the porcelain because it’s a cool place to chill. They aren’t aquatic frogs. They don’t come sculling in, underwater, from the dreadful lower reaches of the septic tank. They don’t circumnavigate the toilet bowl, in unhurried breaststroke – while you’re using it – and then dive deftly back down the outlet pipe.
Call me old fashioned, but I find that disconcerting.

Bubbling kassinas (Kassina senegalensis) are also known as running frogs (because they’re a bit anatomically-challenged). The critters trot about over much of sub-Saharan Africa but it’s still unclear whether they all belong to one big, happy family species.
Photo posted on Flickr by Vivi Bolin.

Look I’m not denying that bubbling kassinas are agreeable little frogs. Just 4 cm (1.6") long, they could have crept straight out of a Peanuts cartoon: their smiling, snub-nosed faces make up almost half their total being. They swim about wearing glossy wetsuits of yellow, cream or silver grey, flamboyantly adorned with black go-faster stripes. But most impressive of all are their massive eyes: burnished-gold with an inky black cat’s pupil.

Frog’s eyes, of course, don’t just look weird. Fitted out with rods and cones, they let the frog see in colour, but - unlike in a mammal's eye - the lens doesn’t flex to focus on objects at differing distances. Instead it trundles back and forth within the eyeball to adjust the focal length. Oh, and frogs’ eyes also aid in digestion. When a frog is scoffing down a bulky prey item, it retracts its eyeballs into its mouth cavity, giving the hapless victim an extra shove down the gullet.
Now that’s what I call gob smacking.

The skin cells of frogs are peppered with colourful chromatophores that can be corralled or dispersed within the cell to alter the frogs’ colour. One type, iridiophores, are silvery, reflecting light back through the other pigments to give the frog a vibrant ‘inner glow’. These kassinas are dressed for (left) the dark, chilly depths of the septic tank and (right) the warm, sunlit waters of the toilet bowl.

Sometimes I’m lulled into believing the toilet is ‘unoccupied’ only to find that the little beasts have crept up under the porcelain rim. When I press 'flush', they come whooshing down in a swirl of white-water, limbs akimbo like a granny in a waterslide. When I can, I fish the creatures out (NOT pleasant) and release them carefully into one of the water dishes I maintain (for no apparent reason) in the garden. But after repeated ‘rescue missions’, I began to wonder.
Was I translocating the same frog over and over?
Unwisely, I started photographing their back patterns...

Argh! There are hundreds of the creatures!

Kassina number 15. According to my frog book, bubbling kassinas hang out in temporary and permanent water bodies, including vleis, marshes, pans, ponds and dams. Please note the conspicuous absence of indoor plumbing. Is this an oversight or are my frogs eccentric?

The rains haven’t yet arrived this season, so the squatters in my bathroom are blessedly mute. Like most frogs, macho bubbling kassinas have two different croaks.
The first is a love song (a short, rising boip which you can listen to here) whose lyrics go: “I am WONDERFUL and I’m waiting here just for you” (okay, I can’t guarantee this is absolutely verbatim).
The other ditty, which has more of a punk rock feel, is sung to fellow choristers: “Piss off you mongrel, this is MY bloody podium!”

The problem with all this fine operatic communication is that the intended recipient may not be able to hear you above the racket. I mean when the rains come, there can be ten different species all bellowing out their serenades down by the water. But bubbling kassinas are wily. Firstly, they adhere to the early birds adage and begin calling in the late afternoon when everyone else is still abed. Secondly, they avoid the Idol's try-out scrum down at the poolside, secreting themselves in the shrubbery well back from the water. It’s out here, where it’s less noisy, that they rendezvous with potential lovers, and – if their song is sexy enough – then accompany their ladylove down to the water.

However, there’s a flaw in this plan. When one lusty kassina boips, his neighbours can’t resist doing it too, and while this creates a lovely rippling or bubbling effect (hence the frog’s name), it’s probably teeth-grindingly annoying to amorous gentlemen (yes, most frogs do have small teeth; some even have vomerine teeth that sprout from the roof of their mouth). In an effort to get a word in edgewise, male kassinas serenade antiphonally; that is, they carefully utter their boips in the space between the boips of their rivals. Begging meerkat pups use the same technique; in fact experiments show that adult meerkats bring more food to a speaker playing two pups begging antiphonally than to the same two begging simultaneously (I warned you I’d have trouble staying focussed tonight).

Now I don’t know what all this means for my effluent dwellers. Will the males position themselves around my lounge and kitchen, singing their hearts out from my bookshelves and stove? Will female kassinas come scratching at the windows like Cathy’s ghost? And will lovelorn couples then converge on my bathroom to indulge in hot amplexus in the toilet bowl?
Hmm, something to look forward to I guess...

I was planning to tell you all about the kassinas’ ugly duckling tadpoles who look so similar to tiny fish that metamorphosis must come as a real shock to them. However, the prospect of a toilet bowl brimming with tadpoles (even spiffy goldfish-like ones) is too distressing to contemplate. Additionally, I couldn’t find a SINGLE image of the little creatures anywhere on the internet. I’ve resolved that when my resident kassinas do become parents, I’ll take a photo of their ankle-nibblers (come Hell or high water – oh yuk!) and post it – free for use – all over cyberspace.

Actually, the real reason I’m finishing up now is because I’m afraid I’m going succumb to major renal problems if I don’t IMMEDIATELY go and pollute my kassinas' home...

About Me

Having spent 16 years living in remote places in the African bush studying the social behaviour of mongooses, my own is non-existent. I survived 8 years in the desert, at the Kalahari Meerkat Research Project (i.e. Meerkat Manor), and am now doing research on dwarf mongooses in the lowveld of NE South Africa.

If you come across a mistake on this blog, please let me know. I really want to learn new things, and to get them right!

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